Record number of babies born in the Fraser Valley in 2024

Babies, babies, and more babies.

Last year was a record-setting 12 months for the Fraser Valley’s parents, as the region welcomed a massive surge in the number of new babies.

The thousands of babies shows how the Fraser Valley is becoming a refuge for would-be parents seeking homes large enough to raise a family.

Five hundred more infants were born in the Fraser Valley than the previous 12 months, marking a 10% increase from 2023. That sent the year’s birth figures past the previous high mark set in 2021—the particularly busy year after the onset of the COVID pandemic.

The increase occurred broadly across the region, with only Hope registering a drop in the number of babies born to local numbers. (The BC Statistics figures are for the place-of-residence of the mother, not the city in which the baby was delivered.)

Nearly 2,000 babies were born in each of Langley and Abbotsford, while Chilliwack was home to 1,202 new babies—a 15% surge in newborns, the largest year-over-year increase among the region’s largest centres.

The province as a whole saw a 6% jump in the number of babies born last year, but birth figures remain lower than they were a decade ago. In the Fraser Valley, however, the region has far more young children than at any time before. In 2024, 1,000 more babies were born to local mothers than a decade ago.

Over the last decade, the region has accounted for a growing share of BC’s babies. In 2014, the Fraser Valley was home to 10.6% of all the province’s newborns. Last year, the figure was 13%. That shift reflects the valley’s increasing role in providing young families a (relatively) affordable place to raise kids.

All the newborns, though, bring downstream impacts that have not yet been accounted for—or even projected.

The region’s crowded schools already don’t have enough room for all the students in Chilliwack, Abbotsford, and Langley. Although new schools are on the way, some are projected to be full as soon as they open. Yesterday, The Current reported that the province had told local school districts it didn’t have enough money to fulfill new requests for new schools and expansions this year.

Despite the increase in newborns, BC Stats’ population projections platform—a program used by school districts, health authorities and the provincial government to plan for future growth—suggests that the number of five-year-olds in the three largest Fraser Valley cities will decline over the coming years. The site projects that there will be 13% fewer five-year-olds in Abbotsford in 2028 than in 2023. It forecasts a similar drop in Chilliwack, and a small decline in Langley. BC Stats is also the agency that collects and distributes the birth figures used in this story.

If the BC Stats projections prove correct, the cities may already have enough elementary schools to accommodate future student populations.

But the birth figures indicate that local school districts may continue to see significant increases in enrolment in the coming years—even before one accounts for the arrival of new children moving to the area with their parents and guardians.

Langley and Abbotsford each registered about 300 more births in 2024 than in 2019. That’s equivalent to about 15 extra kindergarten classes in each city.

The babies are here. Soon they’ll be students.